53rd Merdeka : My Letter to Malaysians

To my fellow Malaysians,

In a few days we celebrate the 53rd mark of our nation's independence which signifies the united growth our nation has seen over the past half a century. Yet today, more than ever before, the rift between the people of our nation has grown far apart than it has ever been, despite the advancements in every field and despite the claims that our people have matured in comparison to the past.

And who's fault is it?

Some may say that it will always be the fault of the government, for their lack of attention over the minute details of our society and sometimes actions which is either unexplained or illogical to the understanding of the public. Some may say that it will always be the fault of a particular race who would either take their rights in the country for granted or would continue to demand for everything up to the point would want to fight every person that is in their way.

Problem is that the cause of all this is none of the reasons above. Its us, the people of Malaysia. It has always been us.

For years, we've been squabbling among ourselves about everything that is wrong in this country and how it is the fault of someone that causes another party to be shortchanged from their own right. It has always been the argument of a race being prejudicial or racist among one another. In any of these situations, we fail every single time to stop and ponder how unnecessary all this fighting and how it has not only failed to serve the actual purpose but is destroying the very foundation that we hold dear.

Is there any reasons for us to fight?

First up we have the concept of 1Malaysia, where some have been using this to claim rights and demand that some parties need to be kept quiet. IS THIS CONCEPT ALL ABOUT RACE IN THE FIRST PLACE?

The answer is no, it is not. Its just us that have the tendency to take everything into a racial issue for reason that is unclear to many of us. The idea behind the concept is suppose to focus more on improving the work rate, ethics as well as to serve the national purpose of the public REGARDLESS OF color, race, religion or even sex. We as 1Malaysia are suppose to focus on improving the performance of our people, not use the concept as a platform to demand or even undermine those among us.

As the motto says "Rakyat Diutamakan, Pencapaian Diutamakan" a term that is conveniently forgotten by all us Malaysians because we are more interested to look at the big, giant "1" logo because its more interesting that way. No one wants to hear about us working harder, slugging it out more for the betterment of the country, all that we care about is how juicy the story would be if we were to blame another person that is different than us. After all, thats what we think 1Malaysia has always been about right?

My Fellow Malaysians,

There are some out there how tend to spin us to the direction of racism each time someone mentions of a way to focus outside of the racism issue, on the simple reason that they profit from all the unnecessary squabbling that goes on in this country and we succumb to it. For reasons I can never understand, with the height of our education we fail to do two things:

1. Realize that these people who tend to blow up issues of racism in this country do so without shame because it will benefit them alone in some way or another.

2. Instead of rising up to the occasion, we succumb to the racial game as well...

If we continue to mock every effort to fix this country, regardless of how impossible the task may seem, we will never be able to reach the height that we claim we can reach. I remembered a senior political advisor once told me that when Man once put the idea out of going to the moon, everybody laughed and jeered of the idea and yet, today we see it as no longer and impossible task. Same goes with with the idea that things in Malaysia can improve, only thing is that some are just more interested of sitting back and make fun of it.

My Fellow Malaysians,

Enough with us squabbling with one another over trivial issues that would not amount to anything. Bear in mind, that is always easier for us to ignore and continue on to work on improving this country rather than spending time pointing at one another and screaming at each other's throats. Enough with us allowing "race" to be an issue among us when our forefathers, with the lack of education, understanding and even technology can still live with one another WITH THE RACIAL DIVISION in the country and we can't seem to do so with everything that we have in this day and age. Enough with our obsession that we need to point the flaws and faults of other people until the cows come home because logic will tell us, it takes too long to amount to absolutely nothing.

Perhaps it is time for our generation to set all that aside and focus more on making things work in this country.

Happy 53rd Merdeka my fellow Malaysians. Let see how we deal with it this year.

I wish we could be more colour blind. I wish there's more positive competition between all people. I wish we could be more honest and transparent in things. I wish there's no such thing as corruption...

How we wish it is so easy to drop all the "race" issue - the issue has worsen in the past decade. The racial division is caused by the political leaders - to be ONE MALAYSIA - we need to have ONE FAIR RULES / LAWS for everyone, regardless of race. The elders should not preach about them and us to the young ones, and the leaders should lead instead of stealing from the public and corrupting the whole organisation/country.